Beautiful Dreamer 1864. music and lyrics by
Stephen Foster. in The Sheik (1921). What the lyrics on the title
cards say Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan (Rudolph Valentino) is singing
under Lady Diana Mayo's (Agnes Ayres) window. See "Kashmiri Song" below.

Kashmiri Song 1902. music by Amy Woodforde-Finden.
lyrics by Laurence Hope. in The Sheik (1921). The song Lady Diana Mayo
(Agnes Ayres) hears Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan (Rudolph Valentino) singing
in the book, The Sheik. I don't claim to be an expert lipreader,
but Rudolph Valentino's lip movements in the movie seem to fit the
lyrics to "Kashmiri Song" rather than "Beautiful Dreamer," as the
movie's title cards say. My guess is that the filming was done according
to the book, then in the editing phase someone decided to use a
song more familiar to the audience.

Singing Silent Stars:

Buster Keaton Played the ukelele and enjoyed
singing vaudeville songs in private with friends. He can be heard
playing and singing in the documentary,Buster Keaton Rides Again
(1965).

Pola Negri Sang a song called "Paradise"
in the film A Woman Commands (1931). She also recorded at least
one traditional gypsy song, "Why Be Sad," with guitarist Boris Golovka
and a gypsy chorus. This can be heard on the Pavillion Records
CD, "Estrada: Russian Gypsy Singers, Recordings of 1905-1931"
(GEMM CD 9960). Somewhere I remember reading
that she played the guitar.

Rudolph Valentino His only record, with "Kashmiri
Song" on one side and "El Relicario" on the other, was recorded
at the Brunswick Recording Laboratories in New York on May 14, 1923.
It was released by the Celebrities Recording Company, Hollywood,
in 1926, after he was dead and helpless to prevent it. There's a
good reason he didn't want this one to go public, although to be fair,
the problems were mostly caused, directly or indirectly, by
the technical limitations of the time. "Kashmiri
Song," (see note above) sung in English (with a heavy accent; English was his fourth
language, learned mostly as an adult), is from his film The Sheik.
"El Relicario," sung in Spanish, seems to be about a bullfighter,
as far as my limited Spanish can tell. Both were "oldies"
when recorded, popular songs from the recent past, 1902 and 1918, respectively.
These blasts from the past can be heard coming out of your
very own computer speakers if you go to the Falcon
Lair site, enter the doors, and check out "Valentino's Voice." The files require
a plug-in that can play .rm (RealPlayer) files. One biography states that
he learned to play the piano when he was a student at the Collegio
della Sapienza. Unfortunately, the same biography makes some pretty
wild claims about other aspects of his life, so I'm not sure how
much it can be trusted. Still shots from show him holding a guitar in an expert manner, so he may have played, but then, he was also such a good actor that he could fake just about anything convincingly.

Songs Inspired by Silent
Films or Stars:

Blood and Sand

"You
Gave Me Your Heart" 1922. music by Ted Snyder.
lyrics by Francis Wheeler and Harry B. Smith. Recorded by The Great White Way Orchestra.

The Sheik

"The Sheik
of Araby" 1921. music by Ted Snyder.
lyrics by Francis Wheeler and Harry B. Smith. Sung by Eddie Cantor in "Make
It Snappy." It is said that Rudolph Valentino
hated this song. In the 1950s Lou Monte recorded
a comic novelty version in Italian.Rudolph Valentino

"There's
a New Star in Heaven Tonight" 1926. by J. Keirn Brennan,
Irving Mills, and Jimmy McHugh. The dedication reads, "In
Memory, Of Our Late Beloved Star." (Valentino died at the young
age of thirty-one on August 23, 1926.)